California Drought

California had their driest year in 2013 and this is turning out to be the driest winter. Note the 2 satellite pictures – one from 1/13/2013 and the one on the right is from 1/13/2014. Note the lack of snow in the mountains! Mammoth Mt. Ski Area has had only 48″ of snow all season (less than Grand Rapids). Last year they got over 147″ in December alone. Squaw Valley reports a base of only 21″ at 8,900 ft. elevation. Same at the Kirkwood Ski Area – a base of only 21″. On Thursday, snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mts. was only 17% of average. The Willits water agency, in Mendocino County says there is just a 100-day supply of water left. A persistent ridge over the Rockies has not only forced storm systems north of California, but the ridge has brought NW flow and incursions of cold, Arctic air to the Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast. The dry weather has enhanced the fire danger. Note that almost all fires out there now were started by humans, either accidentally or on purpose – that fires would not have occurred if the people had not started them. Many western fires are started by lightning, but without storms, you don’t get the lightning. The ridge and dry conditions will persist UFN – I don’t see the ridge breaking down anytime soon. The next week looks bone dry for California and much of Mexico and the western U.S. Extreme negative EPO prime driver of California drought/ridge and Great Lakes cold…negative Arctic Oscillation is another marker for cold air moving south into the Great Lakes.

116 Responses to “California Drought”

If build a city in a desert, plant highly flammable vegetation because it looks pretty, and waste all of your water on your putting green; what do you expect to happen?
Darwin would say what?
Billy Joel would say what?
Smokey the Bear would say what?
Forrest Gump would say what?

You are more describing Palm Springs. California has it’s worst fires often where it snows 300+ inches a year, and no planting of highly flammable vegetation! But your description however somewhat funny I have admit, would probably be more so, if it didn’t effect as many lives as it is this year. Your implied theory however, does fit southern Ca pretty close. Lol

Yeah but we are about to get ridiculous cold for the next 2 weeks so climate change doesn’t exist. according to Fox News. Worst thing they ever did was call it Global “warming”. Its not about the warming, its about the messed up extremes from one end to the other.

Right. The weather never used to be extreme. Perception, not reality. What has really changed is the fact that in 1900 in California there were 1.5 million people, in 2000 there were 34 million. THAT is why there is a water shortage, not because the climate has changed.

True as it pertains to Southern California.. They take all the water from Northern Ca and ship it through an aqua-duct, canal, to L.A….. Otherwise the water situation would not be where it is, of course this year is an exception.

The weather is extreme btw, it’s not just do to population increase. There are many years in which Ca has an abundance of water. I’m not implying global warming either. Although that seems to be occurring naturally, however it has been flat for some time. Pretty hard to quantify trends on a place that’s been around so long, and such a contrasting short period of data values. ( accurate or maybe not).

Mike – the “extremes” are no more extreme now than they were before. We had a near-record low number of tornadoes last year…we’ve now gone 8 years without a Category 3 or higher hurricane hit on the U.S., the longest time in history – last year we had the fewest number of wildfires in the U.S. in any year since 1984 – we haven’t had a drought as widespread or severe over such a large area as the drought of the mid 1930s – the coldest cold wave was in Feb. 1899 and the warmest heat wave was in July 1936. Overall hurricane activity global has been decreasing since 2005.

It was “global warming” from CO2…but now that the globe hasn’t warmed since 2002, it’s been renamed “climate change”. CO2 doesn’t make it colder, no more so than turning up your thermostat would make one room of your house colder.

I lived in Las Vegas for a few months years ago, and yes, everything is dry and brown. No green anywhere. I was so glad to finally see green in the mountain valleys once I got into Utah on my way home.

Ya, this current situation is bad. I do sometimes miss the ocean and 70,s year around. But as for L.A you couldn’t pay me to live there. I like the seasons in Michigan, always been snow lover. Here is a couple cool things about living in San Diego. One you can drive 45 min and your in a different country, two you can drive 1 hour north east you have 170″ of snow and skiing, of course the ocean with 78 degree water temp, 45 min east Palm Springs and desert activities( sand rails, motorcycle , etc) and if you like outdoor activities to many to list, last 45 min to L.A.( no thanks for me ). Cost of living terrible. I’ll take Michigan.

Before I drove across myself, I felt the same way. But you need to know where to go, and speaking Spanish helps. Yes, it is usually safer to fly, but driving can be fine depending on the border city. My friend did get kidnaped near Tia Juana and he was from Mexico. They knew his family had money, really sad situation. He still hasn’t been found, and that was after a large ransom payout…going on 4+ years as of Dec…..

Next week looks cold but unfavorable for lake effect snow (must I include the term snow when we all know it is physically impossible for liquid to fall in the extreme temperatures… At least naturally). Our main chances of snowfall will come from low pressure systems and clippers, but the jetstream will be too far south for any good systems.

If this extreme cold pattern continues… then we may be stuck with clippers. I do think the cold will break in the mid-end of the month with a couple storms. Obviously we could be in the rain/mix side before snow, but we shall see. The atmospheric conditions just aren’t good (at the moment) for prolong periods of cold, just short cold spells. But with some changes in the pattern soon, I think its possible!

NO SNOWSTORM PATTERN with no change in sight! I just took a measurement and my total snowfall accumulation for this 2 day massive clipper was 1.0 inches of SNOW! My NWS point forecast said that I would recieve 4.0 inches! Back to the drawing board! What a joke!

NEWS BULLETIN>>>>> John Dee is off his rocker! Check out his web site! Click the forecast graphic link on the left hand corner and then scroll down to the 5 to 10 day snowfall outlook!!! He is giving GR 8 to 12 inches of SNOW! Is he nuts? GR will be lucky to see more than two inches of SNOW during this time frame! Ridiculous!

I will be driving that way it looks like as,well. . I really wish we could have one storm penetrate our bubble…. Instead here comes the pitch- just wide and outside- inside and off the corner, etc, etc. what is Ricky Von on the storm mound…what happened to the cheese straight down the pipe. Home run!!!!!

Yep Rocky but when the pattern breaks were going into a whole different amplified pattern later in February and March. When that high off the pacific breaks down better look out because the flood gates are open for big storms with lots of gulf moisture charged to produce are biggest snow yet along with flooding, severe weather and tornadoes. I just think when one amplified pattern is done another will start but I’m thinking that at some point toward spring it will probably be storm after storm. MHO.

I sure hope the stormy SNOWSTORM pattern starts before the end of February! How about we get the SNOWSTORM party started by the beginning of February and then have it last till April! Now that would be fun!!!!

+ 10000 have never reached the storm button off phase, Strictly on plz… I have never said ” hmmm I wish these snow storms would weaken a little” but I would love to see this magnanimous storm pattern of epic proportion in which you elude to Mr. Kevin.W of the winter storm watch. I really would….

By looking at the SOI numbers and the pressures out in southern Asia I’m thinking things will change about the first to second week of February. The south pacific is really starting to warm up and I think the pattern is going to change right about that time. Probably what will happen is a large storm will start to break down the high off the pacific and then the storms will start coming. I really think that once we get into a more subtropical storm track it may end with lots of snowstorms/floods/severe weather/tornadoes from mid February through maybe April. The high has broke down a couple times: The big icestorm followed by a huge snowstorm, just look at the pattern, its coming once that high is gone. Just my honest opinion. I mean think about once you get to Valentines day (I always use that as the end of solar winter) the south starts to warm up the atmosphere has more energy to work with and the jet is stronger. Then your off to the races. I could be wrong but its MHO.

Also sometimes you go from one extreme to another pretty fast. What could happen and which I don’t wish is that March could be a month of record flooding in California with mudslides and washed out roads in the blink of an eye.

Just the facts Jack. When we are in a COLD and SNOWY pattern I will talk SNOWSTORMS! When we are in a NO SNOWSTORM pattern I make sure that everyone knows about it! The fact remains once you are in a pattern it is hard to break out of it! Now bring on the SNOW!! Rock n Roll will never die!!!

Wow your giving up pretty quick for a snowlover. You got to look at the pattern the past 6 weeks and when we have a had big precipatation producers the ridge broke down and we got hammered. Just hang in there I know this type of pattern the storms are moisture starved coming all the way from the Yukon. I’m tellin ya when it breaks the flood gates are going to be pouring and your gonna wish it would stop. With a very deep frost in the ground and we get a quick melt with some big rain producers were all going to be swimming in the street. I can just see how this spring is going to be JUST HORRIBLE.

Kevin, once again I’m just not seeing it EVER getting to the point where I hit the eject button due to frequency, strength, and intensity of voracious storms to come. I appreciate your take on the possibility of this occurring and I do hope you are correct in your hypothesis. But with all do respect I don’t believe that the ” snow lovers ” are going to beg for mercy when, or rather if the food gates do open. I guess I should only speak on my account, but that threshold has not been minutely close to being reached for me EVER. But if it does I will be the first person to ” yell uncle” and you shall be forever known as uncle Kevin W aka storm whisperer at large. Until that time I think it’s safe to say keep the hammer down!!

Looks like the snow is fairly light across northern Illinois. I would suspect some intensification over the next 5 hours or so with just flurries up here. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few location around the Indiana Border pick up an inch or two of snow though, but in general, this system has been significantly farther south than previously expected.

However, it does appear that the most significant snowfall across Indiana will occur tomorrow from a batch of snow further up north that will swing down south. So I guess this light snow was anticipated in the first place, at least by the looks of it.

I had to shovel in NW Grand Rapids this evening. I only shoveled about 1.5″ which would be total snowfall for the week. Also Grand Rapids has only about half the snow depth that we have here at my house. I have seen reports from the local snowmobile clubs that the trails held up, and are actually in good to really good shape. We are going up north on Monday to snowmobile, but we’re not sure on where we will go yet.

As I was plowing was thinking how last winter didnt even start till Jan 20 for me, this year has been good so far, thought I would add up snowfall from 01/20/13 to 1/18/14 (today) (363 days) 156.9″ recorded at muskegon.

Ok nuff said, no weather to speak so im doing something other than worrying about whats gonna happen.

00Z Euro is even colder than previous runs for the last week of January. It gives lake shore counties 20-30 degrees below average, and areas east of the lake influence 30-40 degrees below average for the morning of January 27. So on the morning of Jan. 27 the temps could be from -5 to -15 in lake shore counties, and -15 to -30 in inland counties? I hope it doesn’t get that cold!

All of the news about potential SNOW is anemic. Today’s clipper will go South, the Monday clipper will go North and GR will see very little SNOW all week! Winter is rapidly leaving West MI! All of this cold air doesn’t do a thing for us with out SNOW!! I am heading up North to find some decent snow pack! Latter people!

A short term solution to aid in Drought relief for Farmers in Sacramento Area – transfer water from the Sacramento River via railroad tank cars.
( A 34,500 gallon tank car will cover 1.27 acres with 1″ of water. )

This would be costly, but we don’t have a problem sending $billions to Iraq & Afghanistan, etc. This would help in mitigating the food shortage and unrest that may follow the crisis.